As the Kashmir conflict grows, Pakistan is looking to the US for leadership

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October 08, 2016 04:13 PM EDT

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's special envoys spent the past week in Washington D.C. stressing the need for White House assistance in their highly volatile confrontations with India over Kashmir and advised U.S. officials that peace in to war-torn Afghanistan is only possible if the Kashmir crisis is resolved.

Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, the Pakistan envoy for Kashmir, said the two conflicts cannot be "compartmentalized."

Hussien Syed and Shezra Mansab, a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan, met with reporters and U.S officials this week in Washington D.C.

Tuesday morning during a session at Washington-based think-tank Stimson Centre he linked Kashmir for the first time with Afghanistan saying the "road to peace in Kabul lies in Kashmir in the sense that when you talk of peace, you cannot compartmentalize peace, you can't segregate a section... ok you can have peace in Kabul and let Kashmir burn. That is not going to happen."

"U.S. is responsive to address Pakistani concerns, promised to include parts of our dossier on human rights in the annual State Department Human Rights Report, also to prod, push and nudge India towards resumption of bilateral dialogue with India," he said.

Indian soldiers accused of human right's abuses by Pakistan

On Tuesday, Hussein Syed and Mansab gave State Department officials a report documenting human right's violations, including pictures of people that had been shot with pellets by Indian soldiers. Each cartridge contains 500 tiny iron balls that sprays the body and causes significant damage.

Indian officials have given few comments but a New York Times report details Indian security officials in Kashmir explaining that they are also in life-threatening situations.

Many Kashmiri people have been blinded

Mansab, says more than 150 people have been completely blinded, and more wounded.

"Opinions can very, but facts are facts, and this is all based on facts documented by human right's organizations, including India, including the international community, including the United States media as well," Hussein Syed told Circa. He said the State Department would document the incident in their annual report on human rights.

Why the clashes?

The Indian Embassy also had a luncheon for reporters at the same time on Tuesday and told reporters who attended they had a right to defend their nation against terrorists. Tensions rose in July with the killing of Burhan Muzaffar Wani, a young leader of a separatist Kashmiri militant group and active social media user, that Pakistani's viewed as a freedom fighter. And in September tensions escalated between the two nuclear nations with armed clashes from militants leading to the deaths of 19 Indian soldiers.

India says it launched an attack to target terrorists last week

Last week, the Indian government said it launched a surgical strike against terrorist launching pads across a border in Kashmir, known as the line of control, but Pakistani officials, including Hussein Syed, denied that India breached the line. Pakistan did say a cross-border attack by Indian soldiers did lead to the death of two of soldiers.

Pakistan Envoy says U.S. has a 'love affair' with India

On Tuesday, Senator Mushahid blamed the United States for not doing enough to address the human right's crisis brewing in Kashmir saying, the U.S. avoids leading because it has a "love affair" with India.

He said "just because Kashmiris do not have oil or are not in Europe or do not belong to a certain religious domination, they should not be denied those rights. We feel that there are double standards."

Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project who chaired President Obama's first interagency review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan told Circa that U.S. involvement is "not likely."

"The US has a longstanding and bipartisan policy of staying out of the Kashmir issue aside from urging both India and Pakistan to use restraint," said Riedel, who also served 30 years in the CIA. "Obama is not likely to change that now."